L. T. Meade

Elizabeth Thomasina Meade Smith (1844–1914), writing under the pseudonym L. T. Meade, was a prolific writer of girls' stories, also an editor. From County Cork in Ireland, she began writing in her teens.

Early life

She was born in Bandon, County Cork, Ireland, daughter of Rev. R. T. Meade, of Nohoval, County Cork. She later moved to London, where she married Alfred Toulmin Smith in September 1879.

Writing

She began writing at 17 and produced over 280 books in her lifetime, being so prolific that no fewer than eleven new titles under her byline appeared in the first few years after her death.

She was primarily known for her books for young people, of which the most famous was A World of Girls, published in 1886. A World of Girls sold 37,000 copies and was highly influential on girls’ school stories of the twentieth century and contributed to the idea of New Woman. However, she also wrote "sentimental" and "sensational" stories, religious stories, historical novels, adventure, romances, and mysteries.

Meade worked with three male co-authors. The first of these was Dr. Clifford Halifax, with whom she first collaborated in 1893 and wrote six books. A year later she first teamed with Robert Eustace, and turned out eleven volumes with him. Her last co-author was Sir Robert Kennaway Douglas (her daughter's father-in-law); they produced only one book, in 1897. The Eustace partnerships are notable for two female villains, Madame Sara (in The Sorceress of the Strand) and Madame Koluchy (the mastermind of a band of gangsters, in The Brotherhood of the Seven Kings). Meade and Eustace also created the occult detective and palmist Diana Marburg ("the Oracle of Maddox Street"), who first appeared in the US edition of Pearson's Magazine in 1902.